Customer Reviews

Light at the end of the tunnel

Pata surprises no one with its forecast that beleaguered member countries will see recovery this year.

Pacific
Asia Travel Association is backing an optimistic forecast that the
region will close 2009 with a 3% growth in tourism, slightly better
than UNWTO predictions.

UNWTO anticipates growth will shrink to less than 3% and could be even zero.

Pataâ€'s
strategic intelligence centre director, John Koldowski, said the
association was â€œmore bullish than othersâ€ suggesting a positive growth
in the region by the close of 2009.

However, most of the data
presented a â€œnot so pretty pictureâ€ for the 100 travel executives and
media who attended yesterdayâ€'s release of Pataâ€'s annual industry
forecast.

Admitting there were very few bright spots, Mr
Koldowski closed on a positive note claiming Pata had seen the light at
the end of the tunnel.

In a message, obviously designed to
placate the fears of Pata member companies, he assured them the turning
point could be as early as the third quarter of this year, but more
likely in 2010.

Pata bases its optimism mainly on the fact that
governments in Asia/Pacific are â€œthrowing money at promotions,
subsidising accommodation and air fares which could kick start recovery
by the end of the year.

Unfortunately, much of the data
presented used 2007 arrivals as a base, a banner year for tourism,
while most of its own member countries failed to deliver their 2008
tourist arrivals to Pata for analysis.

Mr Koldowski stressed
that assessing trends and forecasts on tourist arrivals was a flawed
strategy. He then went on to rely on tourist arrivals to make his
forecast.

However, he conceded there were too many variables in
simplistic tourist arrival data and called on governments to invest in
data that monitored spending, length of stay and other details of
travel rather trips or arrivals.

It is a call, Pata has made over the years, largely ignored even by it own government members.

Despite
out-dated raw data, on which Pata based its conclusions, the
presentation did indicate that Asia/Pacific destinations will have
their work cut for them to close the year and sustain a performance
close to 2008 results.

Pata was preaching to the membership
pews, garnering thanks for an effort well done, but closer scrutiny
would suggest that even the associationâ€'s data gathering mechanism is
slow and relies on the sole, but questionable item â€œtourist arrivalsâ€
that was so eloquently dismissed as irrelevant by Mr Koldowskiâ€'s
presentation.